U.S. Weather Bureau in 1890s Nebraska

The U.S. Weather Bureau was established
by an act of Congress on October 1, 1890. It took over the weather
service that had been established in the office of the Chief
Signal Officer of the War Department in 1870 during the administration
of President Ulysses S. Grant. The bureau in Nebraska maintained
meteorological stations at Lincoln, Omaha, North Platte, and
Valentine with numerous substations. The difficulty of accurately
forecasting Nebraska weather was noted through the years by newspapers
and periodicals in the state. H. F. McIntosh of the Western
Stockman and Cultivator, published in Omaha, in 1892 criticized
the government weather service for attempting what he considered
an impossible task:

"As we go to press on the afternoon
of July 28th [1892] it is raining a steady continuous downpour
which has been nearly continuous since ten o'clock P.M. of yesterday.
This rain we are glad to say extends nearly all over the Northwest.
The weather bulletin issued at 8 P.M. yesterday said: 'The expected
rains in Nebraska have occurred. North Platte heads the list
with 2.90 inches. At Kearney it is now raining. Valentine had
.12 of an inch and now enjoys a rain. It has rained at Yankton,
and Sioux City reports 1.66 inch. From appearances this evening
it must have rained in the vicinity of Omaha. A rain belt exists
over the country from the upper lakes to Colorado.'"

McIntosh went on to criticize the government
weather service for "making up its reports from the facts
reported from hundreds of weather stations from which accurate
observations of the temperature and air, which govern the weather
conditions, were taken" and in succeeding issues of the
paper demanded drastic reductions in the service. McIntosh believed
that it was impossible to accurately predict weather and on November
15, 1892, called the weather service an "egregious farce"
and "a hoax at public expense." On December 15 he editorialized:

"The all-around-hoax of the nineteenth
century is the United States Signal Service commonly known as
the weather bureau. It has been supposed that forecasting the
weather is a science more or less exact, which with properly
adjusted instruments an experienced person could anticipate storms
or fair weather and so could govern his actions accordingly.
The fact is, however, that the instruments in use for the purpose
of prognosticating the weather have nothing to do with results.
The observer sees his column of mercury rise and he says we will
have a change. Again he sees his column of mercury fall and he
says we will have a change. With either change the curious public
are kept on the anxious seat, and when the weather gets here
we have it. Mostly, we have weather every day, and the weather
bureau has nothing to do with it."

Fortunately, not all Nebraskans shared
McIntosh's views. J. Sterling Morton was appointed secretary
of the U.S. Department of Agriculture at the beginning of President
Grover Cleveland's second term in 1893. Under Morton's leadership,
the Weather Bureau added ten thousand cities and towns to its
service.

From the Omaha Bee's
special issue on one of the most destructive weather disasters
in the state's history.